AOIT Web Design

AOIT Web Design

Lesson 13 Attracting Traffic

AOIT Web Design

Lesson 13

Attracting Traffic

Student Resources

Resource / Description
Student Resource 13.1 / Student Presentations: Attracting Traffic
Student Resource 13.2 / Note Taking: Attracting Traffic
Student Resource 13.3 / Assignment Sheet: Plan for Attracting Traffic

Student Resource 13.1

Student Presentations: Attracting Traffic

Directions: The best website in the world won’t do you or your client any good unless people are using it. So how do you attract people to your site and keep them coming back often? Step one is to build a great website—which, of course, you have done. Next, you must attract visitors to your site and retain their interest once they are there. Your teacher will assign you one of the four topics listed below, and you and your group will prepare an eight-minute presentation on the topic and present it to your class. Review the assessment criteria at the end of this resource before you begin work.

Guidelines for Your Presentation

· Use the tips below to research your topic online. Make sure the sources that you consult to find information are recent. As the web grows and develops, strategies for attracting traffic change, and the information you present to the class needs to be up-to-date.

· Plan to use a computer and an LCD projector to show supporting examples about your topic from the Internet. You may use presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, but it is optional.

· Make sure your presentation is clear and organized and does not exceed eight minutes.

· Make good use of teamwork and cooperative effort to prepare for and conduct the presentation.

Research Tips

Group 1: Driving Traffic to Your Website

Web traffic refers to the number of visitors to a site and the number of pages those people visit on the site.

· Demonstrate how online marketing tools, such as newsletters, tips, event calendars, articles, blogs, or discussion groups, can help drive traffic to a site.

· Demonstrate how tools such as polls, contests, RSS, and calculators can make a site “sticky.”

· Show examples of a simple domain name and how it can be used effectively in offline marketing materials such as ads, magazine articles, business cards, brochures, and so on.

· What is a reciprocal link and how can it help build site popularity?

· What is a favicon and how can it attract visitors?

· Describe how a “cost-per-click” service such as Google AdWords works.

· Show examples of and explain the pros and cons of banner ads, pop-up ads, and bulk emails.

Group 2: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to efforts to improve a website’s performance with search engines in order to improve the volume and quality of visitors to the website.

· Discuss typical user actions when faced with a long list of search engine results, and explain why getting proper placement on search engines is as important as the website itself.

· Explain how a search engine has spiders that “crawl” the web to index and rank new web pages, and show how you can actually register your site with various search engines (e.g., https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url).

· Demonstrate the proper way to write a title tag in HTML code (concise, no more than 40–60 characters, placed above the description, etc.), and demonstrate a proper description meta tag in both the HTML code and on a search engine results page.

· Discuss how reciprocal links affect search engine ranking (the more sites that link to you the better, but the more sites that these sites also link to, the worse for your site).

· What are Google Penguin and Google Panda, and how do they affect SEO?

· What is keyword density and how does it affect the rank of a page? How does keyword placement affect the rank of a page? What is the best approach to using keywords?

Group 3: Building Online Credibility

Online credibility is what leads web users to believe in and trust the content found on a website, and therefore return to that site.

· Demonstrate ways that websites can easily allow users to verify the accuracy of the information on a site (citations, references, links, dates of review or update, etc.).

· Find examples of websites that offer the most interesting content above the fold.

· Compare how a professional-looking and easy-to-use site appears much more credible than a confusing, unprofessional site.

· Why does having experts and partners with appropriate credentials, as well as an affiliation with a real organization, help users assign credibility to a site?

· Find a site with errors or inaccuracies, and show how even the smallest errors can hurt credibility.

· Show examples of good contact pages and how providing multiple means of contact (phone, email, mail, feedback forms) can boost credibility. Demonstrate how to place a mailto link within the HTML code.

· Why can too many ads, offers, and so forth be annoying to users and cost a site credibility?

· Demonstrate a group or a forum such as Google or Yahoo! Groups. Explain how adding a forum to a site can help build online credibility as well as attract and retain visitors. Also explain the potential negative impact of forums or blogs that are not kept up-to-date. Actively building that community is a full-time job, in many cases.

Group 4: Gathering and Tracking Site Statistics

Website statistics provide information about the users of a site—which page they go to most, which page they spend the most time on, which page they enter the site from, and so on.

· Explain what information is contained on a web server log (e.g., time and date visited, duration of stay, entry point, browser type, referring websites, page views, etc.).

· Who usually provides the web tracking software for a site? Show some examples of web hosting companies who provide this service.

· Demonstrate how a log analyzer formats the server data into useful tools, and how those tools may affect how a web designer modifies a site.

· Describe how a hit is calculated (for each file within a page).

· How could viewing statistics on a “top path” help improve a website’s usability?

· In what ways can you leverage Google Analytics to analyze traffic?

AOIT Web Design

Lesson 13 Attracting Traffic

Make sure your presentation meets or exceeds the following assessment criteria:

· The presentation clearly defines the topic area and covers each of the research tips provided.

· The presentation shows examples of websites that do and do not demonstrate success in the topic area.

· The presentation gives a correct demonstration of technical tasks and coding needed to implement the techniques covered.

· The presentation clearly explains the potential benefits and risks of implementing the techniques covered.

Student Resource 13.2

Note Taking: Attracting Traffic

Student Name:______Date:______

Directions: During the group presentations, take notes on each topic area below. You will use your notes in an upcoming class period to help create a plan for attracting traffic for your client.

Driving Traffic to Your Website

Definition:

Results expected (traffic, user experience, etc.):

Techniques:

Site modifications needed to implement:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Definition:

Results expected (traffic, user experience, etc.):

Techniques:

Site modifications needed to implement:

Building Online Credibility

Definition:

Results expected (traffic, user experience, etc.):

Techniques:

Site modifications needed to implement:

Gathering and Tracking Site Statistics

Definition:

Results expected (traffic, user experience, etc.):

Techniques:

Site modifications needed to implement:

Student Resource 13.3

Assignment Sheet: Plan for Attracting Traffic

Directions: Join your culminating project group and formulate a plan for attracting traffic to your client’s website, using your notes from the presentations. Each member of your group should serve as a reference for the part of the plan he or she researched and presented. Review the assessment criteria at the end of this resource before you begin work.

Guidelines for Your Plan

· Your plan should be about two pages long.

· Use the prompts listed below as an outline for each paragraph in your plan.

· Make sure that your plan suggests various tasks your client can perform, the potential results, and specific instructions for implementation.

Plan Outline

Overview: (why your client needs a plan to attract traffic to the site)

Driving Traffic to Your Website

· Description: (define why this is relevant to your client)

· Expected results: (impact on traffic, user experience, etc.)

· Recommendations: (explain the changes that the client should make)

· Implementation: (describe in detail the changes needed on the site, the marketing pieces that need to be developed, the new software or services that need to be purchased, etc.)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

· Description: (define why this is relevant to your client)

· Expected results: (impact on traffic, user experience, etc.)

· Recommendations: (explain the techniques that the client should implement)

· Implementation: (describe in detail the changes needed on the site, the marketing pieces that need to be developed, the new software or services that need to be purchased, etc.)

Building Online Credibility

· Description: (define why this is relevant to your client)

· Expected results: (impact on traffic, user experience, etc.)

· Recommendations: (explain the changes that the client should make)

· Implementation: (describe in detail the changes needed on the site, the marketing pieces that need to be developed, the new software or services that need to be purchased, etc.)

Gathering and Tracking Site Statistics

· Description: (define why this is relevant to your client)

· Expected results: (impact on traffic, user experience, etc.)

· Recommendations: (explain the changes that the client should implement)

· Implementation: (describe in detail the changes needed on the site, the marketing pieces that need to be developed, the new software or services that need to be purchased, etc.)

Make sure your plan meets or exceeds the following assessment criteria:

· The plan provides thoroughly researched recommendations for driving traffic to the website.

· The plan provides clear recommendations for search engine optimization.

· The plan clearly explains recommendations for building online credibility.

· The plan provides clear and complete recommendations for gathering and tracking site statistics.

· The plan is well organized and free of spelling and grammatical errors.